


Breakfast in Bed

by Sholio



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Getting to Know Each Other, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 07:08:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19389043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Five times they brought each other breakfast.





	Breakfast in Bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



"Good morning," Peggy declared, breezing into Jack's hospital room and plonking a tray into his lap.

Jack squirmed in his bed, pushing himself up a little further, and frowned at her. "... good morning to you too, I guess."

"Oh, don't look at me like that, the nurse was coming this way and I relieved her of her burden. I was coming in here anyway; I need to ask you some questions about the shooting." She sat down at his bedside.

Jack thrashed a little more until Peggy leaned over and helped prop him up with pillows. It was not an accustomed role for her, being a nursemaid. There was something intimate and yet impersonal about being this close to Jack, holding his shoulder, politely looking away from his grimaces of pain as the twisting motion pulled on his stitches.

It was very strange seeing him so white and weak. Over the last year, she had gotten used to being able to push back against Jack as hard as she could, barring only the certain areas of sensitivity that she knew to avoid (or, at times, to use to her advantage). But this was something different; he was _fragile,_ physically if not emotionally, and it was very odd, having to be careful with him like this.

"Are you gonna spoon-feed me too, Marge?" he asked with a crooked smile, and she suddenly stopped feeling quite so sympathetic.

"I have every confidence you can manage." She pulled her notebook out of her purse and flipped it open. "Let us go back to the moment of your shooting."

Jack grimaced. "Good job putting me off my breakfast. Thanks for that."

But he still ate a few forkfuls of eggs and half a piece of toast, more than she'd seen him eat at one time yet, and she made no mention of the way his hand trembled when he held the fork.

He _was_ getting well, a little at a time. And she told herself she had not worried otherwise for a moment.

*

"Good morning, beautiful."

Peggy looked up in surprise as the plate clinked on her desk. "Daniel, what is this?"

"It's from the cafe across the street," Daniel said, looking pleased with himself. He reached into his pocket and extracted a bundle of flatware wrapped in a napkin, which he placed beside her plate. "Eggs, ham, toast -- a good decent breakfast for a change."

"I am quite satisfied with my usual cup of tea and stale biscuit, thank you," she said, but she reached up to run a hand down his arm. "I don't know what to say," she added, and in a rush of full disclosure, "I don't believe anyone has done this for me before."

Daniel's face went suddenly soft and strange. "Then it's time someone did," he said, and rested his cheek for a moment against her hair.

*

Rather like walking into the men's locker room at the SSR over a year ago, it took Peggy a minute to work herself up to opening the door. She was standing outside the west-wing guest bedroom at Howard's LA mansion, in the hall, with a tray in her hands. Anyone could walk by. It would be most embarrassing.

She took a breath and freed a hand to tap on the door.

"Yeah?" Jack's voice said, after a moment.

"Are you decent?" she asked, and then hastily decided it would be a good idea to head off any sarcastic comments before they could materialize. "Which is to say, can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess so."

On that rousing note, she opened the door. Jack was sitting on the edge of the bed in a robe; it was hard to say if he was getting up or going back to bed. Jack's habits had been entirely unpredictable since he'd left the hospital. She was used to running into him drifting around the mansion at all hours of the day or night, looking thin and wan.

"So if you're here to --" he began, then paused as Peggy set the tray on the bedside table. "What's this?"

"Breakfast. Mr. Jarvis made omelets. He's busy in the kitchen, so I brought this down for you to save you a walk."

Jack was looking at the tray. Peggy looked too. She had blithely assumed that _he_ would assume that one of the Jarvises had arranged the tray, only now becoming aware that the haphazard arrangement of coffee cup, utensils, and sundry other items (she'd grabbed some of Ana's pastries, along with half a grapefruit) would never have passed muster if a Jarvis had been involved.

"Did _you_ make the omelet?" Jack asked after a minute, sounding wary.

"No, Jack," she said, sitting on the bed beside him.

"Good. Just checking."

"You have so little faith in my cooking skills, do you?"

"Yes," Jack said. "I've heard what Sousa has to say about it."

Peggy only snorted. They had been getting quite close, Daniel and Jack, since Jack had been staying at the mansion. She saw them together more often than not. There had been a time when she'd wondered if Daniel would be able to forgive the Arena Club business. It pleased her now to see that they had not only moved beyond it, but it seemed to have brought them closer, in the end.

"I shall refrain from telling Daniel that you're revealing all his confidences behind his back."

Jack smiled, but he still looked exhausted, and his jaw was lightly furred with several days' worth of blond stubble -- something he would never have permitted himself, once upon a time.

"Are you unwell?" Peggy asked quietly. Jack's recovery had been a one-step-forward, one-step-back affair. After he'd left the hospital, a lung infection had nearly sent him back, and he sometimes seemed weaker than when he'd been confined to a bed, though she thought it was mainly that he kept pushing himself. She'd even seen him trying to work with her weights the other day, with Daniel quietly spotting for him. She had slipped away before they'd seen her.

"No more than usual," he said in a tone that was trying for light, but missed.

"Jack, there is no shame in being ill."

"Oh?" he said, an edge of anger creeping into her tone. "What do you know about it?"

For answer, Peggy reached for the buttons of her blouse. She glanced at the closed door, then undid the top three buttons. Jack gave a soft intake of breath.

"Do we need to get Sousa in here, or --"

"Don't worry," she murmured, and pulled down the lapel to bare her shoulder, revealing the bullet scar.

"Ah," Jack said softly. "Yeah. That's in your file." He hesitated. "What was it?"

"I took a bullet in Italy. It ricocheted off my shoulderblade and broke it. They were concerned about involvement of the lungs and trachea. Quite a painful mess." 

"I can just imagine you mustering every argument with the doctors for why it's absolutely necessary that you have to get back to the front, with your arm in a sling and hopped up on morphine."

"Hush," she said with a roll of her eyes, not about to admit that he'd rather accurately guessed the broad strokes of the situation. She rebuttoned her blouse and then put a hand to its lower edge. The bullet wound was comparatively impersonal, a small puckered set of marks that had long since become part of the established landscape of her body. This was perhaps a little less so.

"Oh, what, there's more?" Jack sounded both breathless and exasperated as she tugged the tucked-in edge of her blouse out of the waistband of her trousers. Then he drew in a breath. "That's recent."

"Somewhat," she admitted, looking down. The rebar wound was still pink and angry, though the bruising around its edges had finally faded. 

( _That's gonna leave a scar,_ Daniel had murmured, placing his hand on the soft skin of her belly.

_Does it bother you?_

He'd looked shocked that she'd even have to ask. _It reminds me I almost lost you. But it also reminds me that you survived._ He laid his hand over it, warm against her skin. _It means you're one tough lady to kill, and I think I could get used to having a reminder of that._ )

Now, she took Jack's hand and guided it forward. His fingers were cold in hers. He gave her a single, wide-eyed, startled look, and then his fingertips brushed over the still-sensitive knot of scar tissue.

"It means we survived," she said gently.

He nodded. His palm brushed ever so lightly over the scar and the skin around it, then withdrew, and he curled his hands in his lap.

Peggy tucked her shirt back in.

"Wait a minute," Jack said. His voice was stronger and suddenly very _on,_ in a way she hadn't heard from him in awhile. "Is this why you were walking so weird after Vernon's little shindig? What did you _do?"_

"Eat your breakfast before it's cold," Peggy said, and shoved a piece of toast into his hand.

*

"Brought you something."

Jack glanced up as Daniel set a cup of coffee on the table next to him. A basket of pastries followed; it had been hooked around Daniel's forearm. 

Even this early in the day, the glare off Howard Stark's pool was blinding, and Jack had found the only patch of shade on the sun-drenched patio. Daniel shifted his grip on his crutch and sat down across from him.

"I wish people would stop treating me like I'm an invalid," Jack said testily. "You don't have to bring me things. I'm entirely capable of getting them myself."

Daniel's expression of fond exasperation was very Peggy-like, for a moment. "I was coming out here anyway, Jack. But if it makes you feel better, I'll keep them for myself."

"... Is that Ana Jarvis's kifli?"

Daniel tugged the basket toward himself. "I thought you didn't want any."

"Very funny," Jack said. He reached for a pastry. There was a brief tug-of-war; the basket nearly tipped over onto the poolside tiles and the cup of coffee rocked alarmingly before Daniel, grinning, gave in.

"So you're going to be out of here soon," Daniel said in an offhand tone, brushing powdered sugar off his fingers.

"Little birdie tell you that?"

"You're getting around better. You _look_ better. A lot better."

"It's hard to look worse than mostly dead."

"Jack," Daniel said, and he leaned his elbow on the table between them. His voice was gentle.

"So, yeah," Jack said. He found that he'd lost his appetite for the pastry in his hand. "Lot to do back at the New York SSR."

"Chief's work is never done and all that."

"Yeah."

"Jack, if you want to stay in LA, just say so."

"You think it's up to me?"

"It could be," Daniel said quietly, and he looked away from Jack at the sun glinting off the surface of the pool, with his arm draped over the edge of the table. After a little while, he moved his hand, and curled his fingers lightly around Jack's wrist. Just held it.

Jack let him.

*

Peggy wasn't sure if she liked calling herself a morning person, but she had always enjoyed mornings. She liked getting up early; she liked the clarity of the world in the thin sharp light of a newly risen sun, and she appreciated the peacefulness of enjoying a quiet cup of tea to herself with few people about.

But lately she had learned to appreciate mornings in a whole new way. Mornings had once been about a solitary cup of tea and a half-hour to gather herself before plunging into a new, hectic day. Now, mornings were a lazy and luxurious stirring from sleep, with Daniel's warmth in the bed next to her. He'd all but moved into the mansion, on nights she didn't spend over at his place. No one spoke of it; she trusted the rest of the mansion's residents not to give them away. Even, and perhaps especially --

"Jack!"

Peggy raised her head drowsily from the pillow at Daniel's half-startled, half-amused exclamation. Jack had, indeed, invaded the bedroom, carrying a tray in each hand.

"Morning," he said cheerfully. _He_ looked like he'd been up for hours yet, reminding her that Jack was a morning person himself, or at least he was good at looking put-together and alert in the hours when most people were still in bed.

It was good to see him back to himself again, and she sat up sleepily as he placed a tray in each of their laps. She knew at a glance that the Jarvises hadn't cooked this. It didn't have Ana's experimental touches or Jarvis's decorative flourishes. It was simple food, scrambled eggs and bacon and toast. There was a cup of coffee on Daniel's tray, and a cup of tea on hers.

"No thank yous?" Jack said.

"Did you _cook_ this?" Daniel said.

"Don't look so shocked. I took my turn slinging eggs and hash in the war, same as everybody else -- well, most of us," he said, raising an eyebrow at Peggy. "You don't always have the luxury of a cook, you know."

"Dare we eat it?" Peggy asked with a spark of sly humor. 

"Oh, hush," Jack said, and sitting on the end of the bed between their feet, he helped himself to a piece of toast.


End file.
